Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio may be associated with the outcome in patients with prostate cancer

Purpose

Evidences have shown that neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has a prognostic value in patients with cancer. We wanted to test the prognostic significance of NLR in prostatic cancer of patients who are candidate to radical prostatectomy.

Methods

We have considered 731 patients. Complete demographic data including age, tumor stage, Gleason score, complete blood count and serum biochemical profile were collected. Pre-treatment percentage of neutrophils and NLR were considered, and correlated with patients data and recurrence free survival.

Results

389 patients were evaluated, mean age 65 years, mean follow-up 51.5 months, mean recurrence free survival 51.3 months. Total neutrophil count does not correlate with biochemical recurrence and disease free survival. Patients with a value higher of 60% of neutrophils are more likely to have a recurrence. Patients with a total lymphocyte count <1,500 have a higher rate of relapse. NLR was not correlated with baseline total PSA, with Gleason score and with pathological stage; patients with a NLR >3 has a higher incidence of recurrence. In multivariate analysis including age, total PSA and NLR, NLR is the most important factor able to predict recurrence. There are some limitations to this study; first, this is a retrospective study, and the total number of patients analyzed is relatively small.

Conclusions

Our study suggests that pre-treatment NLR may be associated with disease free survival in patients with prostate cancer, and could be introduced in clinical practice. NLR has the advantage of low economic cost and wide availability.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40064-015-1036-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Nanosystems for skin hydration: a comparative study

The present investigation describes a comparative study for the design of innovative topical formulation for skin hydration. In particular, different colloidal forms based on lipidic components have been produced and characterized. Morphology and dimensional distribution have been investigated by means of electron microscopy and photon correlation spectroscopy. Nanoparticulate systems characterized by different morphology and dimensions depending on production procedures have been obtained, namely cubosomes, nanovesicles, solid lipid nanoparticles and liposomes. Hydration power has been studied by means of a corneometer, measuring the skin electrical capacitance before and after the application of opportunely viscosized nanoparticulate systems. It has been demonstrated that nanovesicle gel displayed a pronounced hydration power with respect to the other nanostructured forms, its hydration effect on skin was 3.5-fold higher, with respect to the untreated area, after 5 min from the application and 1.5-fold higher after 2 h.

Temperature dependence of [3H]PAF binding to washed human platelets

Our results indicate that the binding of [3H]PAF to a single class of high affinity sites on human platelets is endothermic and largely entropy-driven. The increase in entropy can be attributed to the disorganization of water molecules bound to both receptor and ligand during the binding process.